I recently navel-gazed about what it means to be funny. While I do believe in free speech, there has to be a limit on speaking freely when it hurts other people. The recent news about James Gunn and Roseanne Barr reminded me that I have some pretty twisted jokes on this site, some of which … Continue reading It’s just not funny anymore
SUBURBAN TRAUMA is a go
Last year, my friend Sarah Gibbs was telling us a funny story about something that happened to her when she worked in a bookstore. That and two other embarrassing anecdotes made me want to make them into a trio of short films. As luck would have it, Sarah decided to leave Canada in September to … Continue reading SUBURBAN TRAUMA is a go
What it means to be funny
I spend a lot of time on Twitter, for better or worse. It has negatively affected the volume of content I produce for this website in any event. Twitter is a cesspool and a goldmine rolled into one. I can barely scroll fast enough through American politics, only to be caught by surprise by an … Continue reading What it means to be funny
Repair search in Outlook 2016 for Mac
Recently I reinstalled macOS, and discovered that the search feature was not working properly in Outlook 2016 for Mac. Using these instructions from Victor Sachs on this page, I was able to get it to work after Spotlight reindexed everything: sudo mdutil -i off / sudo rm -rf /.Spotlight* sudo rm -rf /.metadata_never_index restart the computer … Continue reading Repair search in Outlook 2016 for Mac
Blockchain and you
By now you will have heard about ICOs and blockchain, and these buzzwords are making you wish you'd invested early in Bitcoin. I'm here to remind you that this post was written specifically to attract traffic through the use of the word "blockchain", with a few more words thrown in, like Bitcoin and Ethereum. If … Continue reading Blockchain and you
Good bye, Jacob Zuma
Defiant to the end, Jacob Zuma is the second president of the Republic of South Africa to be recalled by the African National Congress. Tonight he resigned during a speech that was clearly not written by him. When Thabo Mbeki was recalled almost ten years ago, it also made history for South Africa's fledgling democracy. At … Continue reading Good bye, Jacob Zuma
SQL Server 2017 Administration Inside Out
(Originally posted on my technical blog.) For the last six months or so, I have been helping some really smart people put words on paper, both the physical and electronic kind, which is hopefully going to culminate in an actual technical book that I can point to and say “Yes, that’s the name I invented … Continue reading SQL Server 2017 Administration Inside Out
Complaints of the season
2017, am I right?
On violence in South Africa
Last year on Facebook, I engaged in a discussion with a friend about the fact that violent acts seem to be the norm to make people notice things, in place of that time-worn cliché of "rational discussion". While my response does refer directly to South Africa, in hindsight it could apply elsewhere. Here it is, … Continue reading On violence in South Africa
The rain spider incident of 2009
I can't believe it took me almost nine years to write about this on my blog. Shock, probably. In the second half of 2008, M and I moved into our new house in Linden, in Johannesburg, just 600 metres down the road from a rental we'd had for about a year. One evening in October … Continue reading The rain spider incident of 2009